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Rant: Entity systems and the Rust borrow checker ... or something.

Jonathan Blow · commentary · Watch on YouTube

C, C++, Rust, Go & systems languagesGame programming & enginesProgramming language design

What it is

Jonathan Blow's hour-long livestreamed response to a RustConf 2018 closing keynote about entity systems in Rust. He argues that index-based entity systems amount to manual memory management that sidesteps the borrow checker, and he talks about friction for game developers.

Why Hacker News recommends it

It is the standard citation in HN arguments over Rust for game development, the borrow checker and ECS designs, as a skeptical view from an experienced game developer.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2018, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “A more detailed description of his opinions are laid out here where he goes into much more detail”

    Detailed opinions from experience porting The Witness.

    gravypod, 2020-02 · Recommendation · in “Jonathan Blow on Rust”

  2. “learned a lot from the various ways people try to solve them”

    Blow explains why Rust misses hard game problems.

    hertzrat, 2022-09 · Recommendation · in “Unreal Rust”

  3. “He adds interesting perspectives to the discussio”

    Blow's perspectives on Rust game development and its reliance on arrays.

    colund, 2024-04 · Recommendation · in “Leaving Rust gamedev after 3 years”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: rust, borrow checker, entity component system, game programming, memory management

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